New Bookstore, and Enrique gets real about the business.

I’m really excited to announce my very own bookstore, where I will be selling not only my own books, but books by other authors that I recommend. Books will be available for Amazon Kindle in the .mobi format, and also in the epub format for the majority of other e-readers, including iBooks, Kobo, and Nook.

It’s difficult to make a living writing gay fiction, especially when dealing with the myriad of rules and details each storefront wants the publisher to adhere to. One of the things that rubbed me the wrong way at the beginning was the Kindle Unlimited program run by Amazon. Because they require books to be exclusively sold through Amazon, it limits the reach I have to readers throughout the world.

It might surprise you to know that I sell books in parts of Africa and Asia where Amazon doesn’t even have much of a presence. I feel a responsibility to the lonely person in Gabon, or Azerbaijan who is able to buy my books. If they were exclusive to Amazon, the only way readers would be able to buy them would be with a credit card based in the US or the EU. Amazon then adds an additional $2.00 surcharge on top of it that the author doesn’t see. Because Amazon is the largest storefront, they have this power.

The reality is, I have to make a living. I hate the idea of being exclusive to Amazon, or any other storefront. I want my words to reach readers anywhere in the world, on any type of device possible, so I’m making a difficult decision to bridge the gap between KU, and my ideals. From the next book forward I’ll be distributing my books in a hybrid fashion.

The plan is to release my books to fans from my very own bookstore for the first week, then pulling it from there and making it exclusive to Amazon for the next 90 days. Regardless of how successful it is in KU, it will only be in KU for 90 days because I want readers all over the world to have access to these books, not just in the 20 countries Amazon has a store.

I write books about love and sex from the perspective of being a gay man, because I felt excluded by the publishing industry. I know readers around the globe are hungering for different books too, and hopefully I’m able to help them. I grew up with a father who was in publishing, so books were a constant in my life from the cradle on. Now that he’s passed away, it is an honor and a privilege to carry on the family tradition, albeit in my own unique way.